Remains of the Day*

No matter how hard I try to forget, things just keep coming back to my memory. It’s a small wonder why they call it, “Committing things to memory.” No wonder they call it, “Honoring your commitments.”

Maybe I should just get over things now and look at what the future holds for me. The future looks bright – damn bright – but something’s missing. Even the blinding flash of a bright future (for all the mistakes I made) doesn’t prevent this over-intellectualizing, over-rationalizing writer to think: how much more can I stand?

I dread weekends. Not because of the boredom per se, but the effects of being bored. Any given weekend can put me in my most dangerous state of mind: having a working state of mind. I try to get out of my place the soonest I wake up on a Saturday. I try to do something – anything – to keep myself from thinking too much about my past. I call up friends, I take a walk, anything to keep myself preoccupied. Anything to not think.

If careful thought is itself a commitment, then I still can’t ever escape it. Every night, I ponder upon what I wrote for the day, if they were good enough, if I could still step it up a bit by being less of Marocharim, and more of the everyday writer. Then I make a promise to myself to pay a heck of a lot more attention to what I do, do about my business fulfilling it at work, and then leaving, pondering about what I could still do to improve. The only difference is that I do it one step at a time nowadays.

That goes over pretty quick, since I’m quick to assess everything about the everyday. Still, my nightly train of thought trails on over to what I’m not supposed to think about. People who meant so much to me back then are coming back to me. Or I’m coming back to them. Or we’re just crossing paths. Either way, I’m not even supposed to care. Still, in a very uncharacteristic way, I do.

Still, some people remain in my day wraps up. Tomorrow’s just another day.